- FedExCup Points: 50,000
- Purse: $7.0 million
- Winning Share: $1,260,000
- Yards: 6,839
PGATOUR.com Contributor
HARRISON, N.Y. -- The game plan?
To win the first two FedExCup events and, basically, sew this thing up. Pile up points. Leave everyone -- including the absent-this-week Tiger Woods -- chasing each other for second.
Who wouldn't like that? But who could do it?
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Well, the defending champion here at Westchester Country Club is about to give it a shot.
Vijay Singh may be second on the FedExCup points list, but he just might be the smart choice to win the first two back-to-back.
He is, after all, the defending champion at The Barclays -- even if the 2006 event was held a few months earlier in the schedule. And he's won the event three times and has four other top 7s here. And at next week's Deutsche Bank Championship? He's won once and finished second and fourth in his other two appearances.
We don't have to remind you, too, he's won The TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola at East Lake. And has four other top 9s -- just on the course.
Or that Tiger's taking the week off.
And then there's one last thing -- Singh's not happy with the way he's played this year -- with the exception of his two wins. Those four other top 7s don't count. Nor with the way he's played the majors the last two years.
He's hoping it all tumbles together to form the perfect storm.
"It's a different format this four weeks, different mind set, you're going in there with a lot more aggression and trying to get as much points and win all the tournaments you can,'' he said.
Take the man seriously. When he gets on a run, well, we know what can happen.
Just how all the combinations and permutations of this inaugural FedExCup will sort out isn't certain. Two wins might not be enough with Tiger atop the standings. But that would be a springboard to at least one or two more good tournaments and given the fact that only Tiger and Arron Oberholser can likely match Singh's workout regimen...
Things could be very interesting.
Singh is the one top player who's used to a long grind. It's not unusual to see him play way more than three in a row. And that, in part, is what keeps him in such great shape.
"All my life, I've just played a lot of events,'' said Singh, who won the Mercedes-Benz Championship and Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard earlier this year. "A lot of guys stay home and practice a lot. I pretty much play a lot of events and keep myself sharp that way.
"I do better work on the road than I do at home. I've done it for years and I love playing. A lot of times we get home and just, you know, get to be involved so much and you don't really play I don't really play at home; I practice. I'd rather be on the road and play.''
Staying sharp these days, also means managing the pain. Singh changed trainers -- to Jeffery Fronk -- and we're talking game on with a whole different set of workouts.
"I'm still hurting,'' he said chuckling. "I haven't stopped hurting for the last month. But it's a lot harder than what I used to do with Joey (Diovisalvi). I worked with Joey for six years and he kind of knew my body well.
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• Video: Singh on defending
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"Jeffrey, it's taken him a while, but I like the workouts that he's doing. I think he's going to get me much stronger than I was before. It's just taken me a long time, awhile to get used to it. It's just a different set of workouts every week, every day, and you know, I'm hurting in places I've never hurt before.''
That's a good thing. As is his history at Westchester.
"I don't think I've ever missed it, maybe once if I did,'' he said. "But playing it some 15 times in a row, 14 times in a row, you just learn a lot more about the golf course and you know the breaks and you know where not to hit it. You know where to take a risk; it's just the knowledge about the golf course.''
He tees it up in Thursday's opening round with Jim Furyk and Phil Mickleson, who happen to be third and fourth on the points list. Just the rivalry in that group should jump start the FedExCup.
"Really, you don't really go to sleep thinking about the FedExCup; really nobody does that,'' he said. "Pretty much the same as the Presidents Cup. You know, you don't think about being on the team until you are picked, and same over here. I arrived here looking forward to practice but I didn't, and when I arrived at the golf course I wasn't even thinking about the FedExCup... (Thursday) will kind of get us going a little bit. Obviously you want to be ahead of the other guys and they feel the same way.''
Singh wouldn't be drawn into a discussion about Tiger skipping the first event, nor about how many players might think about not playing four in a row in future -- five if they're also on a Presidents or Ryder Cup team.
"I'm sure everyone can (play four weeks in a row),'' he said. "It will show a lot in these next four weeks that the guys are still going to be there. They are all three well trained athletes, most of them anyway and they will perform. They are all training, they are all exercising, they are all working out, they are all eating right.
"I just think it's in the schedule that they don't want to play it's in their head they don't want to play two or three weeks in a row, four weeks in a row and take a week off. But, you know, if they have to, I think everybody will. ''
The culmination is the TOUR Championship where the field will have been narrowed to the top 30 players. Singh said there's no way it will be a mediocre -- as someone suggested -- event.
"Who wouldn't want to play in that event like that?'' he said. "That's a lay up, you know, you just show up...
"You go back 30, 40 years, give the same opportunities to the guys that were playing then, they will swim to the tournaments. I think it's a great thing that we have. You should be proud of what the TOUR has done for us and we should be really happy that we have a TOUR to play in and they are doing so much for us.''
Now, if he can only execute his game plan...
